A Writer Blocked

A/N – While I usually don't resort to long author's notes until things go awry, case in point the story Meet the Godparents, a bit of explanation is in order for this story.

Actually, it's a series of self-contained scenes relating to other stories I have written. Probably due to my lack of skill as a writer, I end up 'arguing', if you will, with the characters from time to time when I come to a point where I'm stuck between what I thought I wanted and what the characters seem to clearly want. Apparently, along with being 'delusional', I'm also a bit mental.

When it was originally conceived and written, Meet the Godparents was part of a much larger story arc that would go from just after the Battle of Hogwarts to a day in the future, way past the Epilogue-that-must-not–be–thought–about-or-read, that resulted in an epic battle between good and evil and Harry and Hermione finding out in one of those tragic and angst-filled moments that everyone says they hate that they've been torridly in love with each other for almost a century as one of them lays dying. Clichéd I know, but it sounded good at the time.

The problem came up when I got to Chapter 20 in Meet … They, Harry and Hermione, were to have their moment and decide to selflessly set aside their feelings to save the world, again. Well, the problem was, I just couldn't do it. I really tried. Numerous times. Couldn't write that chapter at all. So, I decided to finally listen to some advice.

And, for the record, all things Harry Potter are the property of JK Rowling and her various corporate partners. And since this chapter refers to original characters and concepts, I'd like to 'borrow' a caveat from Spider Robinson. He's an author whose works are incredibly funny and thought provoking. Any resemblance between any character in this series of scenes and any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Except when it isn't.

Chapter One – Epiphany with an Assist

Except for the light coming from the screen, the room was dark. A solitary figure, staring at the screen, would read the text that appeared on the screen, lean back for a moment or two, and then slowly type a few lines. Shaking his head, he'd look at the resulting text on the screen; shake his head and reach over to grab the mouse. Clicking 'undo', the offending text would disappear, and the paragraph returned to its former state.

"How many times have you written that scene?"

"Tonight, or all together?" Not looking over his shoulder, he knew that voice anywhere.

"All together." He could hear the amusement in her voice and shook his head.

"Forty seven times, if you include the one where I had the four mutant turtles kick down the door and do the dance fight scene from 'West Side Story'."

Chuckling, she crossed the room and put her hand on his shoulder. "I think we can safely exclude that one." Coming beside his chair, she sat on the edge of his desk and read the scene on the screen.

"It's really quiet lovely, you know. But you keep mucking it around when I respond." Shaking her head, she smiled. "Do you honestly think I really would even consider saying anything other than 'yes' after a proposal like that?"

Leaning back in his chair, he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "I am not arguing plot details with you." Shaking his head, he sighed. "I must be going barking mad, I'm arguing with one of the characters from a fanfiction story."

Crossing her legs at the ankles, she shrugged. "You've been arguing with me for three days now. I decided to pop in and see if I could speed the process up a bit."

Looking over at her, he could see the laughter lurking behind those eyes. "You really do need to tell him 'no'. Fate of the world and all of that jazz. What happened to feeling guilty if Slytherin returns and conquers the world?"

Frowning, Hermione sighed noisily and rolled her eyes. "What is it with writers and prophecies? Just because some dotty old bat gets a bad bottle of cooking sherry and rambles on, you're all willing to decide the fate of the world hangs on her every word."

"Hey, I didn't start it. Vaguely worded, world-altering prophecies are a classic. About as common as violations of the Prime Directive."

"And we know that all of those turn out for the best, don't we?" Looking frustrated, she leaned forward. "Why do you need me to say 'no' to Harry?"

"Noble sacrifice of star crossed lovers. Rescuing the world by sacrificing their personal happiness. It gets you back on track to return to the world and your other relationships."

"Why don't we just prevent Slytherin from returning rather than waiting around for him to almost pop up? I know he reforms and all, but do you really want to leave saving the world up to Draco? Honestly, I'd rather have a girl's night out with Lavender and Romilda."

"Do you think I'm looking forward to writing a story with him as the hero? Who the heck suggested that?" Shaking his head, he placed his hands on the keyboard and thought for a second.

"Moaning Myrtle. She's desperate to rehabilitate Draco because she's been smitten with him for a while now. She kept whispering things in Sybill's ear until one popped out while the old bat was having a bad reaction to a new bottle of sherry." Shaking her head, Hermione chuckled again.

"Lovely. But it's still a prophecy, so we've either got to work with it or preempt it." Typing a few lines on the screen, he ignores the unladylike snort from his visitor as he reads the paragraph. "Not you?"

"Honestly, can you really imagine me saying that to Harry? The boy's down on one knee, and it's his bad one. Even I'm not going to start quoting from 'Hogwarts: A History' at a moment like that."

Smiling knowingly as the undo button was clicked again, she shrugged. "Even if we can't work it out with Ron and Ginny, which I think we can, Harry and I can find out where Salazar's buried and take care of it before Lucius gets out of Azkaban. Don't let the slimy git buy his way out too soon. Give us three years and we can have his musty old corpse staked out and burned down to a handful of ash." Eyes twinkling in the dim light from the display, she smirked.

"Think of it, a desperate search around the globe, musty libraries in desolate castles, long romantic searches in exotic locales."

Looking thoughtful, he stared at the ceiling. "That's not bad. But I'm twenty chapters into this thing."

Smiling knowingly, Hermione continued on. "And you've foreshadowed this plot change wonderfully. You've used the scene with the chimes and the chords, right?"

Smiling, he looked at her with interest. "Yes, you reaffirmed your soul bond in the Common Room. Why?'

"Honestly, I thought you were figuring it out. You're the musician; it should be easy for you. What's usually created with the presence of a chord?"

"Harmony, but that's not what I meant."

Smiling guilelessly, she shrugged. "Maybe not consciously, but subconsciously it's rife with meaning."

"What about Ron and Ginny?" Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose at the thought of the coming headaches. And the eruption of Mount Molly. "They're not going to take it well."

"Ron and I argue every other paragraph, almost. We're not very well suited to each other. He needs someone a bit more calm and supportive of him."

"You just got through telling him you cared about him back in Chapter 9. He's not going to take that well."

Sighing, Hermione stared at the ceiling. "I do care about him, but our being together is mostly that infatuation thing playing out. We spent three years making each other miserable trying to decide whether or not to go out. And part of that was I always fancied Harry, so I was waiting for him to get over worrying about Ron and ask me out.

"Right now, it's mostly hormones, really. Even now we can't stop arguing for more than a page or two. If we honestly look at our relationship, we'll both realize that we're destined to be one of those couples that everyone dreads because they're as likely to get in a horrible row as they are to have a good time."

"And Harry and Ginny?" Looking intrigued, he wondered what twist she had those two.

"Please. They broke up last year and they're barely reconnected right now. She's trying desperately to get him into the sack to cement their relationship. Half the time she acts like a madwoman or someone possessed every time the poor boy and I have a conversation lasting more than twenty seconds without her supervising it. She loves the 'Boy Who Lived', not Harry."

Grabbing a well-worn legal pad, he began scribbling. "Possessed. That works."

Smiling, Hermione watches as the words start to appear on the pad of paper.

"See, you're getting the idea. A little tweaking here and there and, voila, Harry and I have our happy ever after." Shrugging, she sighed. "At least until we have to save the world from old Salazar." Shaking her head she tried to decipher the scribbling on the pad.

"You really need to find Ginny a boyfriend, she's much too volatile to let run around loose." Reading over his shoulder, she blushed. "And I'd never wear a bikini like that."

Smiling, he shrugged. "Get Harry to put a hot tub in Grimmauld Place and you can wear if just for him."

Shaking her head, she sighed. "You don't wear those in the water, you prat. Get them wet and they'd shrink away to nothing. Very painful, I'd imagine"

"Tell Harry, he's the one who's going to be thinking about it."

"You leave Harry to me. As long as you don't confuse him and Ron when you write that scene, he'll be fine. You do know Luna fancies Ron, right?"

Looking at her, with a smirk, he chuckled. "Is that why she hasn't been in any of my other stories, she's waiting for her chance at Ron?"

Nodding, she smiled. "Something like that. And, of course, you haven't sat down and talked to her enough to write her well. If the two of you spend an hour or so chatting, you'll have enough of a handle on her to use her in this one, and the other one you're writing about the day after the battle. You need to AU that one from the start."

Shaking his head, he sighed. "That's one has just been an opening scene for months now."

"That's because you have the wrong couples in it. If you don't give them a chance to get back together, it's much easier for things to work out. Let Ron be the mature one, let him decide it's not going to work and then let me take it from there." Smiling impishly, she chuckled.

"You know you really want to do it. Even when you write canon stuff, you have Harry and I so close it's funny that we're with the other two."

"You'll behave for the wedding story?"

Nodding, she sighed. "Fine, marry us off to the wrong people if it'll make you happy. Just let me pick out my own wedding gown. I love my mother, but she's focused on this designer from Venice and I'd look like an absolute cow in anything he's done."

Shaking his head, he nodded. "I know, winter wedding and Victorian. I suppose you want fresh snow on top of everything else."

"Check the Royal Observatory records, you can find a day in January that it snowed just enough to make it scenic in Somerset." Looking wistfully off into space, she beamed.

"It's going to be bloody cold on top of that hill in January. Are you certain?"

Closing her eyes, she looked thoughtful. "I'd rather save it for marrying Harry, but he's going to want to get married in either Godric's Hollow or wherever his parents got married. Thank goodness Dad and Mum eloped to Gretna Green, so I'm not going to get any grief about getting married someplace peculiar."

Shaking his head, he smiled. "I thought they changed the rules so you had to be in residence three weeks before you could get married in Scotland then?"

Smiling enigmatically, she rolled her eyes. "They had their honeymoon before the wedding. Parents, what can you do with them?"

"And you'll behave?"

"Yes, I'll behave. Do you honestly think I'm going to pull a runaway bride on you? Besides, you have Harry and Ginny getting married back at the end of summer before my wedding, so it's all rather pointless by the time I get married."

Flipping the notepad open to a blank page, he began scribbling a few notes, muttering 'runaway bride'. Looking over his shoulder, she smiled. "Oh, that's good. You know how I like doing flashbacks, that way I know what's going to happen while all that angst stuff is going on. When do you think you'll get to that one?"

Shrugging his shoulders, he leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "A couple of months, at least. I've got to rework the end of this one and finish up the wedding story so I can start posting it."

Smiling when he mentioned reworking the end of the current story, she nodded at the keyboard. "Go ahead, give it a go."

Sighing, he looked at her for several seconds. She nodded and smiled. Shaking his head, he put his hands back on the keyboard, closed his eyes and began to type. Stopping, he kept his hands over the keys, and his eyes closed. "What do you think?"

Looking at the screen she began to read.

Taking her free hand, and putting it under his chin, she raised his head until she was staring into his emerald-green eyes. "Yes, Harry. A thousand times yes. I'll marry you and nothing will ever come between us, not where it matters. For now and forever, I'm yours." Smiling radiantly, she blinked in surprise when a series of chimes rang out joyously; forming two chords that resolved in the ages old plagal cadence and a golden glow manifested itself around their joined hands. Pulling Harry to his feet, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly. As they finally broke apart, she murmured in Harry's ear. "I hope that Sirius didn't hear that, but I really don't care if he did."

"Oh my. That's…" trailing off, she looked at him. "You really did it."

"No place to work pumpkin juice into the scene, but I think it gets the point across." Smiling, he opened his eyes and looked at her. "Happy?"

Shaking her head, she sighed. "I really don't know what to say." Looking at him sharply, she laughed. "Are you trying to get out of writing a wedding scene in this timeline?"

Chuckling at her, he shrugged. "You'll get your wedding this time around. I'd rather not have your dad show up and argue about it some night."

"Coward." She smiled and slid off the desk. "We really do appreciate this, you know."

Smiling he nodded at her as she headed towards the bookcase. "Just do me one favor, please."

Stopping she turned and nodded. "Certainly. What is it?"

Laughing he shrugged. "Just don't name any of the kids 'Albus Severus'. I'm still not certain how Harry talked Ginny into it in the first timeline."

Smiling enigmatically, she shrugged. "Ginny was still groggy from the healer's pain potion when they signed the birth parchment. Why do you think there was such a gap between Albus and Lily's birth? Honestly, Harry has never stopped whining about sleeping in the guest room for almost a year. As if I really want to hear about that, the insensitive prat." Sounding older, she was now the Hermione from the dreaded 'Epilogue'. "Have you got something up your sleeve to fix this mess?"

Smiling, he nods. "Maybe. I've got to work a few things around. I'm trying to avoid major character death and all that."

"Think about it. Ron still hasn't figured out why the first song on my Ipod is 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light'."

Grinning, he nodded. "That's never good." Smiling as she was back to being the eighteen year old Hermione from the storyline, he nodded. "Go and try to be happy."

"Rhys?"

Shaking his head, she never uses his name. "Yes?"

"Our first daughter's name is Lily Helen. But the second one is named Dorothy."

"You don't have to do that. That was a long time ago."

"She's the reason you write, yes we do. Just deal with it. I'll tell Harry it's because I liked watching 'The Wizard of Oz' on the telly when I was growing up. He indulges me when I mention my childhood."

"It's more believable if you tell him about reading the books. You weren't really the television type growing up, were you?"

"Just the classics. Mum and Dad were very strict about that and sweets."

"Thought so. Head back so I can save this and think about what's next." Turning back to the screen, he was aware that the room was empty again. Smiling, he reached for the mouse and clicked on the icon of a disk to save the chapter. As the file saved, he could swear he heard the faint sound of bells coming from the speakers.

A/N 2 – This chapter was originally written several years ago, and some of the other stories mentioned in this chapter have been abandoned or changed. Particularly the wedding story referenced in this. Though, I am working on a harmonious revision of that concept. Also, the author in the story is not necessarily anyone in particular.